American vs. European Suburbs | American Reacts
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- Опубліковано 25 кві 2024
- Thank you so much for watching!! This one really hit home...
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American vs. European Suburbs (and why US suburbs suck)
• American vs. European ...
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People calling the police on the neighbour's children playing outside is just insane. How can driving your bicycle to the park be illegal. How can walking be seen as suspicious behaviour? This is so unbelievably mind blowing to my European mindset.
Its considered child neglect to not supervise youre kids. I m european and i do a lot of theme parks alone also in the states and trust me they are weird over there like every man is a child predetor or something unless proven otherwise. In Europe i often take a child from a single parent with me on a coaster if mom or dad has 2 kids. When i proposed that in the states i needed to do some fast talking to convince them i'm not some weirdo.
Quite simply because it is the land of the unfreedoms
Well, in the States the main priority is the intrests of capital owners.
Government hands out massive subsidies to big corps, protects assets of capital owners at all costs (1st usage of the old style gatling machine gun was by Chichago police. A wealthy man gave it to them, soon after they used it on a labour strike, gunning down dozens) and generally does whatever business intrests wants (even invading other countries for them).
I’m not saying Europe is much better, but hey, at least in many places we have the Right to Roam as a constitutional right.
Absolutely. Especially the "loitering" laws that are enforced in certain areas of the US seems very dystopian, even though it's done with the protection of others in mind, but the concept itself is just ridiculous. "You are in these premises seemingly without a purpose. That probably means you have a malicious intention, begone!"
Yet but what do you expect from the yanks ,have you not noticed in the "beautiful country with beautiful people"( quote from the next président ) where are the roundabouts!! Must je to confussing for the American grain lol
The concept of the zoning is why all the old SIMcity-style games are so unnatural to me. I didn't understand it as a kid because the surrounding world is so different. In some countries/cities, it is even required that access to basic services is taken into account in a new development project. So you can't build a place with hundreds of houses without a kindergarten, grocery store, etc..
Yes! I agree completely. I wanted to build a cool, eclectic city with tiny shops and midrise buildings all jumbled together... but nooooo. Houses over here... shops over there... industy as far away as possible. Pfffft. I quit Sim City after a week.
@@evawettergren7492 thats why cities skylines is so much better since its made in finland
No idea where you're at, but here in Norway we have zoning. The municipality plan for areas and what they are used for. Like commercial, residential and so on.
In my town more and more of the old large properties near town are being converted from a single house with garden to apartments. Anywhere from a duplex to maybe 8 apartments.
A roughly 1150m2 properly I used to drive past a lot with a smaller house and big garden got replaced by a building with 7 apartments. 3 stories tall with 3+3+1 apartments.
@@Gazer75 As a German who lives in Norway, that is something that definitely makes my life harder in Norway than in other European countries. It is harder to just quickly walk to a grocery store or restaurant.
@Gazer75 I think zoning laws are very different, depending on the country. According to Ashton, American zoning laws are very strict and do not allow meshing of single homes, apartment homes and small stores. Here in my German village all these are sitting side by side.
I live in Germany. Inside a radius of 300 meters from where I live there are 2 bakeries, 2 pharmacies, 1 grocery store, 2 restaurants, 2 fast food shops, 1 ice cream shop, 1 butcher shop, 3 flower shops, 1 clothing store, 1 barber shop, several doctors, 1 retirement home and 1 Amazon locker. But it's still very quiet and by bike I can get out of town and into the woods in all directions within 5 minutes. I love it.
Exactly. Despite ofc course there are some regions which we in ukraine call "sleeping regions" or in poland osiedła where there is almost nothing but houses with maybe some small kiosks around.
In Canada on ther other hand... Well out of the rhe centre thee are almost nothing. Houses and maybe some garages/worskshops for cars. Also random wirehouses once in a while and maybe some kind of fast-food restraunt.
Let me change the headline according to picture - US vs EU surburbs | US citizen react.
@@untanable In Poland even in "sleeping districts" you will get a lot (probably too many) Żabka stores. It's a convenience store, usually open 6-23 (some 24/7 I think) that absolutely monopolised the small retail and groceries market. Like, in some places you can have 4 żabkas on 4 opposing corners of an intersection. Literally, no known economic laws apply to this chain. They are a bit more expensive than box stores, but still, wherever you are in Poland even in the most remote areas, you will have Żabka store within walking distance. I wouldn't be surprised if they already opened one somewhere along a mountain trek lol.
I live in a British suburb, between a town and a village. Within a 20 minute walk there is 4 supermarkets, 2 pet shops, about 10 barber shops, 25 restaurants or cafes, 2 hotels, 2 libraries. About 10 bus stops, 3 train stations, 3 high schools and 2 parks
Also don't ask why there's so many y restaurants and barbers here is really weird
It's basically the same here in Ireland.
A suburb must be planned as if it were a village in its own right. Then it's a good suburb.
That means it needs a town center, a small shopping center and a community center.
A school, a kindergarten etc..
Wich is exactly how suburbs grew here over the centuries. as villages around a city
I live near to major city. 20 min drive away. We have our own town center and have everything here. Only if i need gucci bag etc, i need to go major city.
small grocery store, 5 min walk. Banks, library, school, restaurants, 10 min walk. Big shopping centers, airport, exhibition center, 10 min drive.
Suburb in so called "new town" in UK or - if you like - residential area - modeled on US cities from '60-ties. Only one overpriced grocery shop for over 6000 people living there. The second shop is over 1 mile away. No pub. I lived there for 4 months and I moved out instantly
Polish town aprox. 3000 citizens in he middle of nowhere - two supermarkets, dozen groceries some selling alcohol as well, and many many shops with clothes, shoes, chemicals, pharmacies. All in 5 min walk from your home.
I live in London. I have almost no need to go into Central London unless I am going to a specific museum, meeting friends from the other side of the city, or meeting a client at their office. Wherever I’ve lived here, I’ve been able to do most things by walking, or maybe getting a bus or train a couple of stops. Each area of London has its own town centres, entertainments, services, and parks/open space. It’s wild to me that you’d let cities continue in any other way.
@@ijth1714 now imagine if it wasn't a 20 minute drive away but a 15 minute walk or 5 min bike ride, that said there are certainly areas in Europe where there is a lot of space between houses and no public transportation but it is not anywhere near a city, it's in the country side , out in the forest or up in a mountain
As a european, I love my car. It gets me where I can't get by public transport. But where public transport is more suitable for where I'm going my car stays at home.
Same here. I'm self-employed, so a vehicle is absolutely necessary for my work or to go to one of the surrounding cities to get something that I don't have in my own. I have two major supermarkets, a grocery store, a pharmacy and other basic amenities at walking distances from my house, so I never use the car to go to those. However, if I need to go to Lisbon or Coimbra or even to Porto, I take the train or an express bus. I'm lucky enough to live close to the main national railway line (I can choose between two stations) and to have a major bus hub right in the city. I have to take the car to get to the railway stations, though, but one has free parking and the other one has a park where you like 1€ for the whole day.
I’d rather die than use public transport
@@user-uv8hp4jh7k why?🤔
@@user-uv8hp4jh7k that is your problem
where i live car is necessary if you want to go further than you can bike/walk. purely because for some stupid reason in my city there arent enough busses (more routes than busses) so busses have to change routes, which wouldnt be end of the world if they did it in some central station or something, but instead they do it in a random bus stop in the middle of a forest. so if you arent careful your 15min bus ride home might end up being 2 hours.
I live in what you can call "countryside Belgium" and yet, 15 minutes top to find several restorants, shops... in every directions!
And probably kindergartens, schools, doctors, public transport - and homes suitable for young, old, anyone in-between AND combinations.
I'm 46. I don"t have a drivers licence. My 17 year old daugher tore all her knee ligaments so is wheelchair bound for the next few months. She's rolled out with a friend to one of the fifteen restaurants in a quarter mile distance and planning to go out tonigth to a bar close by.... I like living in Antwerp
i live in a city in the north-east of the netherlands, and i can literally walk almost everywhere. doing grocery's, go to docter dentist etc etc. or i take bike and i am everywhere within 20 minutes.
Where I live in our neck of the woods, I can get to 3 other countries in under 30 minutes and the 4th in under an hour.
Europe organically grew towns and cities over the past several thousand years instead of how in the US, some of these cities were planed and plopped down as they are now in the past 200 years.
Add to that that in Europe we like our old stuff and organically add to it, protecting old buildings left and right, while in the US they would allow a developer tear down the Arc de Triomphe to plop down another mall or Walmart.
@@enlightendbel
And I live in a typical Dresden (half million++ citizen) close suburb. It sound all nice to me (and I know you are correct, I've been to your countries many times for work) but this is all but dying out in Europe.
I do not have easy access to a supermarket 1h walk, public transport (30 minutes walk, lousy sequence), restaurant (the last one closed recently), doctor is 15 minutes by car, dentist too, small shops incl. postal service closed recently etc.
One of the problems is labour shortage.
If you still have it in the Netherland and Belgium countryside - be happy. But the tendency at this moment is very clear. It dies out in Europe. Car becomes a must to have.
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
Even in Europe you can be extremely dependent on a car when you live outside a metropolitan public transport region or in the countryside at all. And an increasing number of smaller villages and towns lose their local grocery stores, pharmacies and even pubs and restaurants because they're no longer viable to operate.
But it's possible to bike everywhere.
I cycled to school and work for years at the age of 12 until 20.
15 km to school and 20 km to work.
That's today a piece of cake with a electric bike.
The video is about the suburbs, not the countryside with small towns.
Yeah, It's the same where I live in Europe. If you're not close to a bigger city you need a car. When I was younger and went to school we had many busses from my community but know, like 15 years later, there are a lot fewer. And the connect to smalltowns first before hitting the city. And that in return makes a bad spiral. Fewer busses, fewer business that can thrive - leads to even fewer busses cause no one "needs" to go there. 😮💨
Yes, in Europe you still need a car outside of the metropolitan areas, ... but you won't have to use your car for absolutely everything as Americans need to. The vast majority of villages retain their grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants ... at walking/cycling distances. Only the very small ones, in rural areas, are losing them (at least here in Spain). There are services and some shopping that forces you to take the car and go to the closest city, but most of the time you can cover your daily needs within your town.
@@PieterPatrick
Just forget it. There are so many suburbs - like mine in Dresden - where you do not have most of the infrastructure and even a public traffic access (although my city is otherwise well organised).
I travelled besides Asia also Europe extensively. It is not typical European to have that all. It varies wildly. For most of us here a car is a must and also not a bad thing. I love my freedom machines: the car and the bicycle, but I cannot share the romanticising of bicycles as the future transport. Mass transport systems and cars are the future, see the modern cities of SE-Asia.
See my large comment a bit further above.
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
@@gerdlunau8411 Of course you need a car, you're a German. :-)
I grew up in the US and have worked in Germany, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia as well as the US. I have never owned a car. In Karlsruhe I took the tram. In Saudi Arabia I lived on the campus of a very large hospital with shopping two blocks away. In Indonesia I was in an exalted position. :) I was provided a driver from the local taxi company to get to the project site. Of course from my hotel I had access to everything walking. And now in retirement I live in Berkeley, California, a real five minute city. Five minutes by foot to two food stores, ten restaurants, three coffee houses, etc. A bus at the corner every 12 minutes that goes to the subway and beyond. And the subway goes to three train stations and two International Airports. This is because I live in a former streetcar (tram) suburb. Just lucky I guess.
Americans: Children go outside on their own? illegal. Add a room to your own house? illegal. Build public transportation? nope. Build stores in a residential area? illegal ... and so on and on
Also Americans: Wohoo, Freedom! We are the freest people on earth, 'Murica 'Murica 'Murica!
🤣
They don't know better. Brainwashed from first grade on with their hysterical obsession with "the flag" and that communist-type "pledge of allegiance". Poor people.
I mean, adding a room in a house can be illegal in Europe too depending on the local limit on coefficient of built up area per land area. Zoning exists in Europe too, it's only handled differently.
@@noefillon1749 and also in my country (dont know about rest of europe) you need to provide the plan(?) to your city and have them aprove it. and some cities will absolutely demolish anything not marked in the plans if they find out (even like 10yrs later).
my 9th grade math teacher found out that the terrace(according to google translate) in her house was built without city aproval by some previous owner, so the city had it demolished. the crappy thing is that she bought that house instead of cheaper neighboring house, because of that terrace.
Oh... XD
oh and don't forget the guns in almost every shop (wouldn't be surprised tbh)
As a European I think it's impossible to eat a proper dinner without wine or beer. You can't drive while under influence, so I don't see how restaurants only reachable by car can work.
Right. That's one reason why designated drivers are such a big thing here. Lol
That's a bit of an exaggeration. In the depicted Germany, less than 10% of adults drink alcohol daily, and almost 50% drink less than once per week or abstain completely (around 17%).
The US have a higher abstinence rate, but the percentage of daily drinkers is comparable, according to some recent data I found it's even a little higher.
Also, especially the fancy, expensive dinner restaurants (outside of large cities), those prime destinations for family gatherings and large celebrations, are usually only reachable by car.
@@tsurutom Designated driver is a thing here too, but most Europeans only eat out for occasions, might be once or twice a week but still. Typically the occasions to have a drink too.
"it's impossible to eat a proper dinner without wine or beer." Sus... 🤔
@@HailHeidi
Which was at the time of my childhood too. I grew up in East-Germany (0 %% for drink & drive) and restaurants not always close.
But this was never a deal at the time for the adults. We were just used to it, no problem. Or a taxi was hired, which people could easily afford.
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
Mixed Zoning is so benefitial, I don't understand anyone being against it... Having residential houses close to a Bakery, a Butcher, a small grocery store, maybe with Postal services included. Kindergarten and school within your suburb. The ideal suburb is one that you never have to leave to cover your everyday needs, because everything is within a mile radius.
A suburb should be a village / small town with everything that entails, that just happens to be close to a big city... And of course connected to that city via public transport.
I live in a smaller village in the east of the Netherlands. A little more than 4000 people. Would be called tiny in the US. Still, when I go outside I can walk to the supermarket. Walk to the butcher, baker, bookstore, several restaurants, doctor, dentist, physical therapist, gym, hair salon, shoe stores, outdoor store, etc etc etc. We have it all and all within a walking distance.
In Germany - at least in larger cities - parents ignore or doubt the safety of the streets (that often look exactly as shown in the video) and opt to become helicopter parents and drive their kids everywhere just as their American counterparts. When I was a small boy in Berlin (50 years ago ☹) I went to school on foot on my own and even walked on my own to sports practice after dark.
Oh, I could see that becoming more and more common anywhere, I guess. So sad.
yeah thats a sad reallity... america is the big rolemodel again and people start to helicopter around their children more and more. to the extent that its getting ridiculous.
I walked to school as well and part of it was along the side of a highway, as I lived a bit outside of town. In winter time it was often already dark when the lessons ended.
But NOTHING like US suburbs, where you cannot walk or bike to ANYTHING!
There's still a difference. In Germany at least in cities or even major towns you have an OPTION. Whereas in the USA in over 90% of anywhere parents simply don't have an option. Car dependency forces them into 'making that choice'
I am Italian, and I grew up on the suburb of a small port city of 23,000 inhabitants. I didn't live near the center, but I walked to school and walked to everything, even the athletic field.
And then obviously the neighborhood of a small city like mine also has its shops, its squares, its meeting points, its bars.
In large cities the neighborhoods are real towns.
Fantastic reaction, I'm in Europe myself and didn't know about many of the issues you face in the US that you and the guy in the video mentioned. It was really interesting to hear about the differences.
I think the video by "Not Just Bikes"
called "The Best Country in the World for Drivers":
ua-cam.com/video/d8RRE2rDw4k/v-deo.html
because the road planning initiatives in the Netherlands
are about road safety first but had the side effect of
more bikes and better infrastructure.
The dedicated building zones are what messes up things most in the US, probably. If you only build one type of building in an area (like business in one spot and housing in another), you force people to travel further. That's what makes everything be so far apart, that you are forced to use a car. And because you need a car, you need a car-centric infrastructure.
Change starts by how you look at neighborhoods...
Who exactly wants to be dependent?
Noone i know.
I think the main takeaway is, that any form of dependency is bad, because it limits options and competition and creative freedom of how you want to live your life. Just because car dependency goes away, doesn't mean cars do. Now you just have choices, and you don't have to sit through hours of traffic if there is a more convenient alternative. You don't have to ask mommy to drive you to your football practice, you don't have to bring an SUV to do bi-weekly shopping, when your local neighborhood has a small grocery store where you can simply walk/bike to and do bi-daily shopping. This also has other knock-on effects such as groceries and other edible goods not having to be pumped with all sorts of longevity chemicals because people wouldn't need to stock up for a week at a time or more, because grocery shopping is now convenient enough to where you can afford to just buy what you need for the current and next day's use.
Same with other things like bicycle paths and biking culture, it leaves up space both on the road, and also in terms of the general space allocation for parking lots. By minimizing this, you get more freed up space for other things like parks, housing, local business, etc to flourish instead of flat asphalt hellscapes. And when car dependency goes down, so does the cars' average sizes, meaning fullsize trucks and SUVs will be more niche use and the overall road infrastructure won't have to be 2x as wide to accommodate them everywhere.
Something I really love where I live in Copenhagen (granted it's a big urban city and not specifically related to suburbia, but the point still stands) is that at my convenience I have a myriad of transport options. I can walk, I can bike, I can use a car or motorcycle, I can take a metro or a light train network, I can take a ferry bus, I can take a normal bus (that uses priority lanes).. And everything is almost equally convenient so it just depends on where I want to go, and at what time of day/weather it is. Having options means I can tailor my choices to my life, rather than tailor my life to the few options that would be available if compared to an American counter example. And the further out from the big city you get, the more this topic matters because distances grow and convenience shrinks.
When I was in high school and lived outside the big city, I used to ride my bike 5 miles with some of my friends when weather was good, and when it was bad we'd take the bus (just standard public bus, infrastructure is good enough where you can live basically anywhere and still get to where you wanna go with public systems). Sometimes we'd go to the local town's center after school, and from there I could take a train back to my place and walk for 10 minutes and be home. Or in very niche cases if things didn't work out, we'd get a lift from a parent maybe a handful of times a year at most. Options matter.
For some people, living in the countryside and working in the city is unfavorable. Public transport to the nearest train station sometimes only runs every hour or only 3 times a day. Therefore, most train stations also have free or inexpensive Park & Ride spaces for cars. Anyone who lives outside of a big city often has difficulty finding parking spaces in the big city and is therefore better off taking the train in terms of time.
Sometimes you have local public transport, but you can only get to where you want to go on the weekend with 2-3 changes :) Example:-> during the week a bus leaves my place every 20 minutes and also stops about 15 minutes away from a hospital. On the weekend, however, you have to take the train to the big city and then change to another bus line or even another train line. Greetings from DE.
Cars should be an option, not a necessity. Elderly people who can't drive suffer a lot of issues due to isolation. Additionally, there are many people who can't afford a car or can't pay for a babysitter. If you have to work, it can be very complicated if you have kids or if you are a single mom or dad.
In the UK, when there was a massive influx of people from the rural area's to the towns during the Industrial Revolution and the expansion of the rail network, new neighbourhoods were built to house them. But these areas included small grocery shops, what Americans would call a "mom & pop" store. These were almost always located at street corners so were called corner shops. They were placed so that no house was more than ¼ of a mile from one.
Living just across the border in Canada, with one of the most wildly inflated housing markets on earth, I can say zoning is a huge issue that, for too long, wasn't given the coverage it needed. We might see some help since recently our province removed the option single family housing only zoning and are doing their best to add some density to neighborhoods after years of NIMBY dominated city councils refusing to allow it. We aren't going to see the benefits right now, but if it improves over the middle and long term, I'll be satisfied.
One of the issues with bring so reliant on cars is that people on low incomes can’t get around without finding more money to buy, fuel and maintain a car as well as the house bills, food, etc. it really must put an extra strain on those low income households they could well do without. I’m British and in our ‘suburb’ not only do we have local shops (several grocery stores, hair stylist, post office/local mail) but good public transport including a train station about 300m from my house straight into the centre of the nearest town/city, easy to walk and take the train to work.
6:20 That depends on the state and sometines on the county. In some places it is indeed illegal to let you kids go outside on their own, in others it is not. I've read about a case where a woman had the police called on her for letting her 13-year old son play outside without an accompanying adult.
6:45 very sad, indeed! And how are the kids to become self-sufficient? Learning traffic at young age walking instead of sitting in the back seat and then suddenly behind the wheel with very little training: what is better??
It isn't that hard. When you get good alternatives for driving, you will end up with fewer people driving. Thus, improving the quality of their commute as well.
Like in the Netherlands, driving your car is great. But that can only happen if most people aren't driving. (or a very low density)
I just visited the US twice, and I wouldn't consider this video propaganda, unlike one of the other commentators said. It clearly states that there are people who see things differently, something propaganda wouldn't do. That said, every country has pros and cons. So it's up to you, to choose the place that sucks the least.
Personally, I wouldn't choose to live in the US. Food quality is something of importance to me, and I wasn't quite content with what I experienced in the US. And I don't even mean the lacklustre FDA process, which allows for a lot of harmful stuff in your food (chlorine chicken and such), but when I came over, I would eat once every 2 days and still not feel hungry. It was so weird. Usually, I eat A LOT. But 1 basic meal in the US just made me lethargic for days.
Keep exploring!
I too missed some good food in the USA (whenever I visited the place) but there is also some good American foodstuff around there too. And claiming that the FDA is allowing so much "harmful" stuff is nonsense. Otherwise all Americans would be dying at an early age en mass. And this is obviously not the case.
Here in Europe people claim the same BS but our food here is also as safe and healthy as it was never before in human history.
I remember my grandparents preparing food, in terms of access, processing and hygiene this would be all but illegal by today's standard and righteously so. Well, esoterically thinking is not helpful.
I have no idea what were you eating there but we worked hard (also physically there) for weeks on end and I certainly cannot confirm your claims. Perhaps you were a bit travelling sick or similar?
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
I spoke to a colleague, who travelled there recently, and he experienced the same, so it's not just me.
Firstly, America is in the top 10 of the most obese nations worldwide. Most Europeans, moving there, will gain weight.
Secondly, few things kill you instantly, but it facilitates and speeds up certain illnesses, such as diabetes, cancer and gut-related diseases, as well as the health of your intestines. If you inhale asbestos, you are not going to drop dead right away, but your health will be impacted in due time.
Yes, the FDA is allowing a lot of crap. Chlorine chicken, pink slime (McDonalds), harmful food colouring, and so on. Even American wheat is banned in Europe, as the US uses glyphosate. There's a fun interview on UA-cam. Dr. Moore, a self-proclaimed environmental specialist, advocated for Roundup/Glyphosate and claimed that glyphosate is extremely safe for humans and can even be drunken in larger quantities without being harmful. The interviewer then prompts him to drink a cup of it, as they had anticipated this response. The interviewee gets all flustered and leaves the interview.
Some of the banned ingredients are:
Titanium Dioxide (E171), Azodicarbonamide, Propylparaben, rBST/rBGH, Brominated Vegetable Oil (E443), Potassium bromate (E924).
You may not remember it, but there was a huge civil protest against the "TTIP" free trade agreement between the EU and US. The population didn't want us food standards to seep into our countries, but it was very hush, hush and happening behind closed doors. Our politicians weren't allowed to take notes or photos, and were only allowed to enter the reading room with the draft of the law for limited periods. Journalists reported, that, due to the number of pages, even the fastest reader wouldn't be able to read the law in the individually permitted time window.
@@gerdlunau8411 You write that, but they put the same stuff in US 'bread' (or what they dare to call bread lol) as in yoga mats. You know, the stuff that makes yoga and fitness mats fluffy and soft, works for making their bread fluffy and soft too.
@@gerdlunau8411 Sure there is plenty of good food in the states its just either very expensive or very localized. And there is a reasons americanes lifespans are declining.
I agree with you that you won't die if you just eat the junk for a couple of weeks.
In the Netherlands there was a very pro-car policy until the people demanded they change it. Rotterdam was heavily bombed in WW2 and they built it back around cars, like American cities are. In the 1960s/70s the people wanted change and, amazingly, GOT change. What are the odds, lol.
Here's another european that ownes a car and that LOVES driving! I mean ... no speed limit in Germany. Need I say more?
Yet I also love having the choice if I want to take the car for a specific trip or not. I also love taking the train. You get to relax and just watch the world fly by. This freedom of choice I feel is something Americans just don't have...
But yeah ... land of the free, I guess...
I've lived in two different suburbs in Finland. a bigger one, where everything you need is within a walking distance (1km at most). the smaller one only has the most basic services within the same distance, but both suburbs have good public transportation, so you can still get to all the services you need from the smaller one as well by taking a bus or a tram.
As you mentioned, it's about choice.... I can take my car, I can take the buss, I can take a train, I can take an electric scooter, I can take my bike and I can walk wherever I want safely and conveniently.... and safely is the key word here.
Transport entirely aside, zoning is bad as its nice and convenient to have shops, cafes and the like in the area so that the local community can mingle and have necessities close by. Mixing light commercial and residential areas is advantageous to both (though some common sense needs to be applied - I got stuck for years living opposite a nightclub which was not ideal for sleep or safety from drunks). With regards to transport, for those who cannot bike (like the disabled), its important to allow public transport to pass through city centres - particularly as that also helps 'park and ride' schemes where those from outside the city can drive to the outskirts and then head into the centre for a nominal fee. (If you're planning to buy loads of stuff that'd be hard to transport, there is always delivery and out-of-town retail parks.)
In Germany teachers ask children to come to the school alone from 6 years old.
I had to look up the term "duplex" but I'm still not certain what it typically means in practice. In UK a popular form of housing is the semi-detached house that has a central wall shared by 2 homes. There is also a rather less popular layout consisting of a pair of maisonettes, where one home is above the other. In the latter case the land is often owned by a 3rd party so the properties are leasehold.
Here is what ChatGPT said:
Duplex House:
A duplex is a single residential building divided into two separate units, sharing a common wall. These units have their own entrances and living facilities, such as kitchens and bathrooms. The structure is designed as two units from the outset and often has a symmetrical appearance. Duplexes can have both units side by side or one above the other.
Semi-Detached House:
A semi-detached house consists of two houses that are built side by side as mirror images of each other and share a common wall. Unlike duplexes, each unit in a semi-detached house typically occupies its own lot and has its own land around the building. The design can vary more than in duplexes, and each side might look more like a standalone house than in a duplex configuration.
Both housing types share a common wall, but the key difference lies in ownership and the division of property. Duplexes are often under a single title, whereas semi-detached houses generally have separate titles for each half.
In Duplex you can recognise duplicate which means double
So a duplex house is basically a double house (two houses in one)
We have the same in Australia. Older ones are called "Terrace Houses" (usually Victorian or Edwardian era), newer ones are usually called "Townhouses". I live in a Victorian terrace house from 1890, it's a set of 6 in a row that share a wall between each but you own your own land as if it were a fully detached house & land (the land is not shared or co-owned), and the shared walls are literally triple solid brick (that's how they built them back then!) so we don't hear a thing from our neighbours on either side.
Damn I forgot to buy milk when I was at the pharmacy, now I need to put my slippers back on and walk for two minutes 😅
I live in the suburb of a small English town. I have 4 different bus routes within 2 minutes walk. Four supermarkets, five fast food/ take aways one pub and a pharmacy all within 10 minutes walk. I can walk to a main line rail station in 25 and the town center in half an hour. My nearest park in 50 yards away and I can walk through two more going in to town. I have two national parks within an hours drive. Quality of life? Yes!
Hobart Tasmania here. I can get everything myself and my family need within a 20 minute walk from home, from many different stores. We have not owned a car for 10 years and my kids always walked to school.
Dutch island .Hha Abel Tasman ..
Hello Heidi, I'm Dutch and i live in a small city at the German border. We own a car but we use him once a week for the bigger groceries that we buy in Germany. there are the groceries about 10% cheaper. for the rest we can walk or on bike to every place we want. We have a groceries store on 600 meter distance and one on 800 meter ( 0,5 mile ) and the rest of the stores also about that distance. And our marketplace in the center of our city is normally a short time parking place and on Thursday there is a market. For the rest there a small shops, cafe's and restaurants. I think that zoning makes the people to much independent of their car and the community is more focused on the me than on us feeling.
Living in a mid-rise in the Netherlands and loving it. Bus stop and tram stops not far away, I can get my groceries by walking and I even have choice to where I am going to get them! Baker, greengrocer, butcher, fishmonger all near.
Also: Adam Something is a cool channel and he has his own insight in to things like urban planning and development. Also: everything needs to be a train ;)
The more I watch videos about the USA, the more it looks to me that you're not quite as free as I thought. For example, I found out about HOA areas and couldn't believe the power they wielded, I certainly wouldn't purchase a home in these areas. An English man's home is his castle.
Same, that shocked me. The only equivalent in Australia is an "Owners Corporation" within an apartment building but that makes sense, because an apartment building has common areas that require upkeep and all the apartments share building insurance, therefore there needs to be a way for all the owners in the building to share the cost of that. There's no such thing as a HOA for detached houses, the main reason people buy a house is to be able to do whatever they want with it. Renovate it, paint it, do whatever you want to the garden, put up whatever fence you want, etc. Nobody can stop you, it's yours. You only need a planning permit for extensions to take into account things like shadowing. Imagine buying a house in the "land of the free" and being told that you can't paint it a certain colour or put a fence up!
@@JesusManera That sounds like a good system. In the USA it seems to me that every system is very prone to being used by people to run their own ego built agenda and their power trips.
iam from germany and i played alone outside (with friends) when i was 6 year old
without supervision... most of the time naked (dont ask me why, but apparently i didnt like clothes as child)
and walked 2 miles to school every day when i was 8 years old
back in the day if your parents brought you to school and back
we bullied you
I live in a small town in the far southwest of Germany, right on the outskirts (the second to last house before going into the forest (2 minutes)). It's exactly 12 minutes on foot to the train station, 10 minutes to the next bar, 8 minutes to the nearest restaurant (Greek), 8 minutes to the nearest grocery store, butcher or bakery, 5 minutes to my family doctor or a pediatrician, 4 minutes to the next children's playground and 3 minutes to the next bus stop.
I'm only writing this because I want to confirm what was said about Germany in the video.
I have no idea about the conditions in the USA at all.
Greetings from the Black Forest.
Villingen?
@@olgahein4384 Viel näher.
Nice react, thank you. And good luck with your personal projects.
I'd like to add a major issue that hasn't been noticed in the video (the original or the react) : the difference in terms of environmental effects. Of course, we all think first about the cars' energy consumption, which has huge impacts. But it's not the only one : soils' artificialization and consequences over biodiversity are incredibly different in this town-planing comparison (if we compare 2 suburbs with the same amount of citizens of course).
Have a nice day y'all ! =)
5:18 where i lived, there were 6 schools within a 7 minute bike ride. Though our town was weird with its construction due to it being build in the early 50’s and the religious societies were still very separated so each school complex came with 3 different smaller buildings close/next to one another
Even if you happen to be close enough to actually walk to certain stores, because of the zoning, most American cities are simply not safe enough for pedestrians. You'd have to cross a highway, with cars driving quite fast. 🤔
Since a few years, and particularly last year, there's a substantial fall in the number of young people getting a driving license in Paris region.
So much that they expect this year to reach a record new low.
So all this youth is going car free even more than before. Paris core, obviously, and the inner ring of suburbs always traditionally had a much lower prevalence of car drivers than average in France.
But right now it's really reducing even more in favor of the bicycle (muscular or e-powered) and public transportation.
Though Paris multilayer transit network is so massive that you can go pretty much anywhere with it, which helps a lot.
New bike lanes have also made a serious difference pushing people to ride bikes.
Now several major streets see more bicycles than cars in a day, and that's great news!
The Cruella politician from Paris (the one on the right in both senses of the word) is Rachida Dati, she's a pain, has shark teeth and barks and growls constantly like a rabid pitbull against anything the current mayor does.
But that's mostly for political circus, just like the region's president that was for some time very vocal against bike lanes and now she's like miss bike lanes...
There a bunch of major bike lanes soon to open in the suburbs before the Olympics, they've tried to create a bike lane network throughout the city-region, laid out like a rapid transit network.
You'll be able to bike from the business Western district all the way to Disneyland Paris Resort in the deep Eastern suburbs, or from CDG airport in the North to Orly airport in the South.
And plenty of other long distance routes (for bicycles). Some like 30 miles...
Of course most cyclists won't ride them from end to end but will use sections of them as they'd have with a highway while driving a car.
Enhanced walkability and bikeability are great to improve a city. It gives back their freedom of movement and autonomy to many people that don't, won't, or can't drive.
And active people is infinitely better than sedentary people.
The problem with the American mindset seems to be that accessible public transport somehow means you have to give up your car.
That's not the point, you can have a car, but you can have the choice to take the bike on a nice day, or a bus or train or tram if the car is broken, or needed by someone else in the family.
Nice reaction. Now I'll have a walk to the grocery store :) Greetings from Norway
I think he exaggerates quite a bit about the kids in European suburbs being able to move on their own. Suburbs in Europe aren't as disconnected as in the US, but if the kids are young very often you still have to drive them. Bus stops may not be close enough. He's taking the case of an ideal European suburb, but their connectivity isn't always that good.
13:51 it's the Groverhaus
There are several reaction vids on this one with great discussions in the comments, if you are interested. - And for how to participate in your town you might also find Strong Towns interesting...
And in the Netherlands children at the age 10-11 get a traffic exam what they perform on a bike.
I live in Poland and I do not even have a driving license. It's fine to only use public transport that recently became completely free for the city residents.
It can get even worse than just zoning laws. When I lived in Lincoln, NE they turned my neighborhood into a "Historical Area" despite the disapproval of a large majority of the people that lived and owned property there. That meant that before you could do anything to the outside of your property you had to get the commissions permission. That included the color you wanted to paint the house, trim, etc. Had to get their permission to erect a deck, porch, patio, etc. Permission to plant or cut down trees, hedges, bushes, etc.
It definitely made everybody's life better. 👿
The first question.
The American version looks dead. Uniform, follow the rules, same big layout.
And the European looks alive, each house its own. And the people there have the freedom to express themselves.
There are many reasons I am happy I was not born in the US, and many reasons why I would not want to live there ( Unless you are part of the top 5% )
But that "dead" layout, with just roads. There is no soul. I really think I would hate living in it.
Zoning:
Strong Towns is a good place to start finding advocacy groups in your local area that are trying to fight the R1 zoning laws. Urbanists and YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) groups can be found everywhere.
Forest with trees I can get on board with, but with the concept of drive-in and drive-through I haven't been able to come terms with yet. One strange thing is, what's been done with the yards people have around their houses. It seems that often there's not much else around the houses than lawn-if even that. And even if the lawn isn't that large, you probably need a ride-on lawn mower: "How these suburbs are turning into sustainable villages!"
Your cat is like a clone of mine, except yours have a white spot on the upper lip. At one point I considered moving to US for a few years, just to try something other than Copenhagen. Getting a job shouldn´t be too difficult with my qualifications. That idea died the instant I remembered I don´t drive - don´t even have a drivers license! You really don´t need that in Copenhagen if you don´t have kids.
I am Swiss and our public transit is so good, I could already drive if I wanted to but there’s no need to in any way, so I just continue not to do anything to learn driving and use our public transit. For me it’s freedom to get driven around all the time and being able to do something myself and it’s cheaper too. My suburb sees more trains between 0 and 5 o clock on a weekday (when there are no extra services for people partying) than Cincinnati or Atlanta during the whole day.
As a Romanian i only use the car when its a must ,since our capital is already full of cars ,things like metro and trams are way faster and their routes cover almost the entire city so its faster and cheaper and anywhere that isnt covered by public transport you can just walk .(Oh and for context ,i could walk like 10 minutes in any direction and i will see at least 2-3 schools , would be a nightmare to make my parents drive me anywhere).
I'm Dutch and i like driving me car and are not particulair fond of cycling and walking (a bit strange for a Dutchy i know). But its so extremly nice not have to drive, to walk to the grocery store for daily fresh stuff. My work is in the centre of a busy city so i drive to the nearest train station and take the rest of the commute by train. Also its so nice if i wanna drink that i can ride my cyclebike walk or take public transport.
At 11:53 you can see a company sign that says "Wohlfeil". This is an old German word that stands for cheap, inexpensive goods. Does anyone here know which store this sign is advertising and what is sold there?
Costa Rican here: every neighborhood has a "pulpería": a small family-owned grocery store where there are basic groceries
I absolutely love that. 💜
Hello Heidi. Someone else said that it's because of the way houses are built. Mostly wood and thin walls and sounds going through
I'm Italian, I live in a little village in lower part of mountain in a tight valley.
Here car is more of a need, narrow streets, just a little of public transportation.
Almost everyone has a car, but you'll always find people walking, running or on a bike, I'm happy about that.
I am European, from Spain. I have my own car, but I use it for traveling outside the city or for weekend getaways. In my city, I mainly get around by walking, allowing myself enough time to reach my destination. My city has about 700,000 inhabitants, so it's already quite sizable by European standards.
40 minutes for a grocery store. damn, meanwhile my small 17k population town has 4 grocery stores in a vicinity of 5km of every house.
Norwegian suburbanite: Sure, I can drive to "wherever" I want, but I can access everything I need (and much, much more) within a 5 minute walk from my house. And busses and trains (local and regional) are plenty, I can get to the airport (across town, and then some, 40-45km away) with a local fare ticket (train or bus). _That_ is freedom. :)
The only thing I can think of not being within a 5 minutes walk is the nearest junior high school. That one is a 10-15 minutes walk away. And the kid's still a firstgrader, so not really an issue :P
In the US having to drive 15 minutes to get to a grocery store/pharmacy.. while in my suburb i literally have to walk 8 houses over for the grocery store..
Also i’m 15 minute walk away from a central park, crosswalks everywhere, and the area around the central park has NO CARS its pedestrian/ bike only.
This example doesn’t go for all places in the U.S obviously. States have different standards and ways of doing things. I lived in a suburb area when I was a kid and I walked to school everyday. Sometimes after school I’d walk to the gas station or donut shop that was nearby. I was lucky to have a diverse and easy access to suburb experience.
11:08 - that is true independence and choice. You COULD use a car, but you have a CHOICE not to. I'm in Poland, I own a car, but I drive it only when it's more convenient than a public transport. And it so happens that public transport especially in cities is way more convenient, so I take my car to get to some random forest, or to places where I don't have a direct fast connection (my parents town, it's pretty small, so naturally it has less options). Which means I use my car like 1-2 times a month (which kinda made me think I should actually sell it and just rent a car when I need it tbh, but selling a car is a pain in the back, because everyone expect it will be perfect, and it never is because it's a car, a tool which gets used up over time...). Oh, and public transport is also way cheaper. In fact, in my parent's town buses are free (wish my big town had that, but than again after conversion ticket is like 1$, so it's reasonable).
Getting public transport in the US suburbs, would require a huge change, first of all in the mentality of the people. the "amercian dream" that is sold over the world, is all about a 1floor house 200 m² with 2 cars in the drive way a garden and all that. you cannot have public transport there because of teh low density, it is just inefficient.
Getting the subrub to become more lively with small shops a school and so on, would require to completely overrun the US urbanisation rules.
this video doesnt show baltic countrys like Estonia, small place called luunja, where kindergarten was only minute away and school was 4 minutes from home and sometimes me and a friend hopped over a fence from kindergarten and went to the park with other friends to swing on a swing or to ride bicycles in luunja, its best place for kids to walk in the school or moms to take kids to kindergarten without a car
We have in Germany so many regions where the laws and regional rules are so strict to build a house. When all houses stands with the gable to the street you must build your house exactly like the other. Sometimes the roofs must have the same colour or you have to plant special types of trees. That's typically german bureaucracy.
As for kids' freedom: When 11 my son went to live with his Dad abroad, where all transport was by car!
He wanted home after 3 months.
"Mum, I was used to just jump on my bike, and go where ever I wanted to go. But I had to be TAKEN.
EVERY where. It was AWFUL!" was his exact words when he came home.
Everything else was great, but he felt like he was in jail.
There is a reason why so many American suburbs are called "bedroom communities," they are designed for people who work and don't do much of anything else. They usually share the following traits which appeal to American workaholics: they are low crime areas; have good schools with minimal influence of drug culture; and they are close enough to shopping centers that they can be accessed by automobile within ten minutes or so. To compare them with the European view of suburbs is ludicrous. American satellite communities compare very well with that type of community. These communities actually are suburbs, but it's more fun to point out the lack of allure that bedroom communities have than to make apples to apples comparisons with communities that Americans choose to live in in order to get away from the city. It's also useful to point out one important thing about bedroom communities: no one makes people live in them. They are designed for people who are looking for a low maintenance place to sleep when they are not working.
I'm European and I have a car, I like driving. I also absolutely prefer walkable, cyclable cities and neighborhoods connected by public transport. I only use my car to go shopping if I buy stuff that's too heavy or bothersome to bring home by hand, and I also use it to go on vacation and travel between cities. And I would use it even less for that sort of intercity travel if the rail network was better and faster. What's great about cars is that you can go to more remote areas or / and travel at your own pace, but a certain amount of that could absolutely be eliminated with better public transportation.
another issue with the suburbs in the US is that changing the system would devalue them so all the people who's house became worthless would vote you out for sure so nobody want to commit
I have corner shops, 2min, 3min and 5min. Supermarkets 10min away. Chip shops, 1min away, and 2 others 5min away. Indian takeaway 5min, Chinese takeaway 3min... endless stuff, and that's walking.
❤ from Northeast England ❤️
Zoning in USA is quite bad but we in Europe have similar problem a that is restrictions when it comes to historical buildings, if your house is considered historical building you are severely limited what you can do with it.
bicycle guy here, okay sometimes i use swiss public transport too, but mostly by bike, 7 km to commute to work, mostly over the field roads... car wouldn't be much faster, sometimes mor dry but rain is only water, so what...
As a child of age 7 or 8 I went to the bakery on Saturday morning to fetch breadrolls for the family. Then I walked to the newsstand, bought a comic book or two, and then back home by myself. German suburbs. Organic zoning. My mother never had to worry about me.
0:52 Yes it's pretty, but at the same time it's creepy: no one around and all the houses so similar. To my European eyes this looks like a little bit "fake"
Yeah it looks like a film set. Also those identical squares of lawn - it's so bleak, it's soulless, there's no character. I'm used to seeing every garden look different from the next, different flowers, bushes etc. One neighbour might have a wooden garden fence, the one next door a stone wall, yet another wrought iron. Those American places look like nobody even lives there, all those wide empty spaces. I'm not even seeing a single child's toy on any of those lawns.
I currently live in the EU in one of those denser neighborhoods shown in this video, but used to live in a typical US suburbia shown in this video. I actually prefer the US one, strangely. I like peace and quiet and due to the large gardens and more spread out nature of US suburbia population density is way lower. Meaning less noise. I literally just came back sunbathing on my back balcony, somebody was working on something making constant noise, then someone else started moving the lawn, then some kids started playing loudly, then someone's dog started barking.... you get it, it's the constant noise you get from just being close to the neighbors. and more people closeby, more noise. I miss the peace and quiet. :)
I live in the Netherlands and contrary to the norm, I am not really a fan of cycling. Yes I have a bike, but 2 km is about my limit. That being said, I am a great advocate for really good cycling infrastructure. For one because it is cheap to build and maintain, relative to the amount of people it can move. But second because the more people cycle, the less people are blocking my way when I am driving.
Good luck with the duplex. With chronic housing shortages everywhere, it makes no sense to restrict accommodation.
If you live in the country side of Norway, you need to drive everywhere. Video is only for citys
It is the same in all country districts. You have the comfort and pleasure of living in the countryside but lose the convenience of living in the city. It is one or the other, at least in Europe.
@@frankmitchell3594 Depends on how remote you are from any nearby towns really. I live fairly far out from my city in Sweden, but our town still have buses that go to the city every 30 minutes as well as a train connection in the town centre that is a 7-8 minute ride away from the city terminal. Though, I do agree that if you're rural, having a car even with that level of public transport infrastructure is very convenient.
You could see all this improve in your lifetime. Vote for the people who will make it happen.
Here's a funny political slogan from the 1970'es Denmark (my translation)
Dog turds back up in the dogs, the dogs into the cars, the cars out of town!
We've manged to get rid about 99% of the dog turds by training their owners,
so fortunately the dogs are still living happily in our towns, enjoying all the parks.
And even the smallest town now have pedestrian zones in their town center.
I don't know how many miles of bike paths have been made since the 1975 but it's A LOT.
In 1974 Copenhagen - where practically all the bike paths were - had about 150 kilometer. Now there's 10.000 kilometers around the country.
WE CAN CHANGE THINGS, but we usually have to change ourselves along, so it takes time!
I live in the UK. My city is designed for people not cars, almost everything is a 15min walk away or real easy to hop on a bus. I would really struggle living in the states, and honestly I wouldn’t want to for quite a few reasons.
I'm English and I love my cars, motorcycles, 4x4, campervan, boats ..I'm a total petrol head but if I'm going somewhere within 30 miles and especially a city then I'm most likely to grab my bicycle and get on the train, nearly every town and village has a train station and our trains in the North West of the UK run every 12 minutes so you are never waiting around long, the nearest train stations to my house is a ten minute walk, 15 minute walk to the next nearest so only 2-3 minutes by bicycle and then when I get to the city I don't even have to look for or pay for parking... I chain it right up outside. I'd rather park my bicycle somewhere than my beloved car or motorcycle ..plus I can have a bevvy or a cheach on my push iron should I feel like it😎👍
As a French National who spent 15 years in the Paris Area, yeah...
I'm all for Public Transportation. On the other hand, I'm not for just banning people from the city center just for the fact that they are driving an outdated car.
I'm also a bike rider, and as such, I despise SUV drivers... The worst I was able to witness.
Being "above" the ground does not grant you the "Right of way".
You still have to abide by the local laws...
It's not people's opinions and preferences that are causing the car dependence. People don't know any better. If their neighbourhood was improved, most of those "car centric" people _would_ walk and cycle.
There are very few people who actually love cars, most people just want to get from A to B, and in the US, the only way to get there is usually by car.
Those classic American suburbs reminds me of industry zones here... roads so wide that two semi trucks can pass eachother even with cars parked at curbside. Wide grass front lawns with hardly any other vegetation, no bushes, trees or hedges.. just a plain football field, but with nothing to stop a ball from rolling out onto the road. Anyway, I'm sure the backyards and the insides of the houses are cozy and spacious.
I do have a drivers licence, I grew up in the countryside of Denmark. But I haven't had a car since I moved to the suburbs of Copenhagen.. I simply don't need it, and it's expensive to have an idle car in DK, taxes, fees and insurance etc.
So, when I do need a car I rent it. I hate driving in midtown anyway, but I like the new concept where you can rent an electric city car per hour, electricity included in the price, simply find an available car and unlock it with the app, and you're good to go.
For longer trips, traditional rental still makes more sense though.
"Traffic is annoying" - said part of the traffic :D
Trust me, if it made sense for me NOT to drive everywhere, I wouldn't! 😅
American suburbs a some kind of sad mistake nodoby wanted. It started in the 1950ties when the need for house for families surged. The build this suburbias and build bigger and bigger highways. The started demolish city centers make space for the cars that invade the city centers. And in the end nobody loves the end result. The hard thing is: there is no easy way out of this situation.
Wait, so in the land of the free you aren't free to decide what type of house you want to build?
What's the problem with a multi-family house or a multi-generational home?
Heidi is German or Austrian, but we like her in the Netherlands, she doesn't let herself be tied down, she seems free
If you want to move in the city, your have light speed with your bike, nothing is faster in German city’s. Kids in Leipzig, we called „LE“ can bike alone to the cosputener sea or so, through parks and forests in the middle of the city. Leipzig is one of the most popular cities in Germany! Hamburg, Munich, Berlin...all have long since overtaken them in popularity, and not without reason! The rents and property prices are gigantic atm
I live in the US (Eugene, Oregon), and my city's streets and neighborhoods look a whole lot more like the European neighborhoods Adam Something was showing than those God-awful stroads and housing isolated from everything else. There are 2 public schools within walking distance, and my 4th-grade son walks to school and back by himself every day. You can see what it's like for yourself, since I film many of my walks and upload them to my channel. Oh, and we also have 20 mph (30 km/h) speed limits in residential areas!